New diet tips Dr Atkins from throne

By JAMES SHERWOOD in London

Move over Dr Atkins. In 2004 the late doctor's low carb/high protein Diet Revolution is being overthrown by a younger, sexier weight-loss programme - the South Beach Diet.

Penned by cardiologist Dr Arthur Agatston, the South Beach Diet - subtitled the Delicious, Doctor-Designed Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss - has already usurped Atkins at the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

The paperback hit British bookstores in December and claims weight loss of 3.6kg to 5.8kg within a fortnight.

Bill and Hillary Clinton are the poster boy and girl of South Beach, with New York magazine reporting the former President's claim that "all his Hollywood friends" are converts. The powerful Democratic troika Barbra Streisand, Oprah Winfrey and Donna Karan are all said to subscribe. Kim Sex and the City Cattrall is a South Beacher.

New weight-loss regimes are as vulnerable to deposition as a South American dictator. Atkins, however, was a Juan Peron of diet dictators. His Diet Revolution was first published in the 1970s but didn't gain worldwide acclaim until just before his death in 2002. To date, over 10 million copies have been sold and lollipop ladies Renee Zellweger, Jennifer Aniston and Geri Halliwell have all credited their dress-size-in-minus-numbers to the good doctor.

Whether beautiful genes, personal trainers and live-in dieticians or Atkins are responsible is a moot point. But celebrity endorsement gave the Atkins diet legs and it's only a matter of time before Hollywood royalty migrates to South Beach. After all, these people change their lifestyle regime as often as their red-carpet outfits.

Nobody disputes the ruthless efficiency of Atkins' no-carbohydrates diet . The exorcism of carbohydrate-rich potatoes, pasta, rice and bread ("a junk food", according to Dr A) in favour of oodles of protein-rich, high-fat cheese, steak and butter seemed like Nirvana compared to a SlimFast shake. But it also led to breath like the bottom of a Labrador's basket and potentially increased risk of heart disease, stroke, colon cancer, osteoporosis and kidney damage.

"The major problem I have with the Atkins Diet is the liberal intake of saturated fats," says Agatston in the introduction to the South Beach Diet. "Eating a meal that's high in saturated fat can trigger a heart attack ... This is why we have strongly encouraged the right fats in the South Beach Diet."

Whereas Atkins demonised carbohydrates, South Beach is neither low carb nor low fat. Instead there's a Good-Carb/Bad-Carb routine combined with an equally moderate balance of protein and fat.

"South Beach is really designed for the tummy area", says Los Angeles-based beauty guru Linda Silver, creator of the Roy male grooming collection. "I did it and it really works. I lost 14 pounds in two weeks and, better than that, I had no desire for sugar, bread or carbs. It works and I'm glad I answered your question before I headed into the kitchen for lox and bagels. You really only have to sacrifice for two weeks and the weight loss is immediate."

Such endorsements are doing the rounds on the cocktail circuit from Miami and Manhattan to Beverly Hills.

Targeting the stomach area is the dieter's equivalent of a direct hit. Dieting without feeling hunger pangs, as Agatston promises and Atkins delivered, is a slam dunk.

Agatston's approach is less controversial than Atkins'. Agatston divides food groups according to the latest buzzwords of the world's diet tribes: The Glycaemic Index.

GI is the latest nutribabble that grades foods on the rate they raise blood sugar levels. Sugar-rush (high GI) foods such as white bread, Coca-Cola, mashed potato, sweetcorn, bananas and white rice are bad guys. Slow-burning (low GI) foods such as oily fish, chicken breast, coffee, apples, milk, muesli and chickpeas are good guys.

The South Beach Diet appeals because it ostensibly denies you nothing and encourages eating until you're full and snacking between meals. Alcohol is permitted, as are tea and coffee. Of course there's a catch: a banana peel upon which most quick-fix dieters will fall. This is the success rate of the initial phase 1 of the programme. For two weeks Agatston does cut all carbohydrates, alcohol, fruit and dairy to cleanse the body's intake of bad carbs. Democratic deployment of good carbs comes later.

Despite Agatston saying you can gobble as much salad as you like (as long as you lay off the pies), this phase of the South Beach is no less draconian than Weight Watchers' points counting. You can't help but lose weight if you cut out processed food, fat, carbohydrates and alcohol. Cynics claim it's water rather than fat loss that makes Agatston's one-stone-in-a-fortnight promise work.

The trouble starts when the good carbs are reintroduced after this purging period in phase 2. White rice, pasta, bread and potatoes, bananas, fruit juice, pineapple, carrots and corn are still out but the temptation is to overcompensate for the fortnight of deprivation. Agatston recommends staying on phase 2 until target weight is achieved, which could mean a severely restricted palette for as long as it takes. Once achieved, phase 3 is for the rest of your life.

All dieticians understand that overweight people want to see results and fast.

It doesn't take a genius to surmise that if you brew up a vat of cabbage soup and drink it exclusively, then the kilos tumble. Agatston scores points because he emphasises health as much as aesthetics. Fasting and/or eating raw vegetables exclusively may be marvellous for the internal organs but both tend to destroy the soul.

"It's a diet truism that you can't lose in a day what took you years to put on," says Agatston in his chapter "Why do people fail on the South Beach Diet?"

Hence the overriding tone of South Beach is evangelical tinged with AA-meeting rhetoric. Dieting is not dissimilar to Alcoholics Anonymous. You get with the programme and you stay with it for life. It's a discipline few people can exercise after the initial burst of drop-a-dress-size cheerleading.

Won't South Beach go the same way as all the other fad diets of Christmas past ?

The South Beach Diet's trump card is combining medical research with good old-fashioned vanity. The South Beach Diet has morphed from its medical beginnings. Agatston created it as a complementary nutrition programme for his cardiology patients.

The messianic Agatston, now associate professor of medicine at the University of Miami medical school, claims: "My concern was not with my patients' appearance, of course; I wanted to find a diet that would help prevent or reverse the myriad heart and vascular problems that stem from obesity."

The irony that a diet would emanate from Miami, the "Mecca of physical beauty and body consciousness", is not lost on Agatston. But it didn't prevent him giving his programme the glamorous South Beach moniker. The Perky Aorta Diet wouldn't play as well on Oprah's Book Club.

It is worth stating that Agatston's South Beach formula is a common-sense eating plan, albeit dressed up as a sexy new bestseller. It doesn't advocate wallowing in fat (Atkins), risking a swoon (cabbage soup) or meaningless nutribabble (metabolic typing and blood group dieting).

"South Beach is not as bizarre as Atkins," said Catherine Collins of the British Dietetic Association when the diet was unveiled in Britain. She warned that "these diets assume that a steady blood sugar level stops overeating, but cravings are only one reason we eat too much".

Just as another lonely evening in front of the TV can tempt an alcoholic to lift the elbow, so carbohydrates, fats and sugars can sing their siren song when we're feeling bored, insecure or lonely rather than just greedy for a sugar rush. Fat is not just a physical issue. As anyone who's tried and failed to give up smoking will tell you, the mental addiction is titanic and the physical merely a tug boat.

The world would be a kinder place and diet gurus would be out of a job should the Rubenesque figure be as celebrated today as in the 18th century. But the 21st century sees fat as Jerry Springer-esque - ergo rather common and incontinent - while emaciated teens are icons of youth and beauty.

- INDEPENDENT